Silent Movie History

‘Movies & Myths As Seen by an Insider” (Literary Digest, 1921)

This writer, Banjamin B. Hampton (1875 – 1932), having heard so much hokum about Hollywood, decided to write an article about all he knew about the place – he was a film director and a producer, so he knew plenty. He was especially irked by the number of young women who arrived at the dream factory each month only to be bamboozled and find themselves on the street before too long.

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He Made the Pictures Move (The Literary Digest, 1921)

Ten million people a day go to the movies in the United States, but how many of them know who made the first movie? The Noes have it. The man who made the first motion-picture, as we know it today, is C. Francis Jenkins (1867 – 1934). Many [actresses] who have not been ‘in pictures’ a month are better known.


C. Francis Jenkins was also one of the brainiacs who contributed his talent to the invention of television.

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Irving Thalberg: Hollywood’s Boy Wonder (Collier’s Magazine, 1924)

An article covering the early career of twenty five year-old Irving Thalberg (1899 – 1936): legendary Hollywood executive and movie producer, whose natural abilities in the Dream Factory catapulted his meteoric rise to greater power, leaving a long string of hits and well-admired film productions in his wake before pneumonia got the better of him twelve years after this article went to press.

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A Glossary of Terms for Movie Fans (Vanity Fair, 1920)

During the summer of 1920, Photoplay Magazine ran this glossary of movie terms with cartoons by Ralph Barton and doggerel verses by Howard Dietz.


With new technology came new terms that seemed odd to the ear (it should be remembered that this new technology did not involve the use of one’s ear at all); words to be added to the nation’s vocabulary were fade-out, shooting, box-office and location.


To shoot a scene is nothing new-
Directors should be shot at, too

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In Praise of Slapstick Comedy (Photoplay Magazine, 1914)

A reporter from Photoplay Magazine let all her eager readers in on the excitement from the glamorous set of the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company (Illinois) where the comedy, Actor Finney’s Finnish (1914) was being shot.
The silent short was directed and performed by those who would be participating steadily during Hollywood’s next thirty year spree: E. Mason Hopper (1885 – 1967), Director; Wallace Beery (1885 – 1949), leading man; Eddie Redway (1869 – 1919), co-star; Leo White (1882 – 1948), co-star; Bobbie Bolder (1859-1937) co-star, Ruth Hennesy (no dates), actress.

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Norma Talmadge was Different (Photoplay Magazine, 1923)

As delighted as this Photoplay Magazine journalist was to make the acquaintance of 1920s film star Norma Talmadge (1894 – 1957), she could not help but compare her to the reigning film diva of the period, Mary Pickford:

Mary awakens your love.
Norma awakens your admiration.
Mary makes you long to be of service to her.
Norma makes you long to have her friendship.
Mary Pickford is a sort of divine child, who always seems far away from you, glowing in a soft light…
Norma Talmadge is an intelligent, brilliant woman of the world, with every faculty keyed to the highest pitch…


The interview was conducted by the versatile Adela Rogers St. Johns (1894 – 1988): a veteran journalist from Hollywood’s earliest days, she also made her mark writing screenplays, novels and toiled in the precincts as one of the first woman police reporters.

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‘Film Cannot Be Art” (The Dial Magazine, 1927)

In this article, a 1920s critic forthrightly states that the primitive state of movie cameras renders them unfit as capable tools with which art can be created. He expands on his remarks by pointing out that 1920s film technology generally will never be able to render thought-provoking plots or articulate narratives until some necessary advancements are made in the field.


Another anti-silent film article can be read here…


-an additional article from the 1920s defaming silent film can be read here…

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Fatty Arbuckle Has Something to Say… (Motion Picture News, 1919)

An interview with the famous silent film comedian, Fatty Arbuckle, as it appeared in a forgotten Hollywood trade magazine. Accompanying the interview are eight lines of biographical information pertaining to his Hollywood career as it stood in the year 1916. This short profile first appeared in The Studio Directory of The Motion Picture News and will serve to answer some of the questions readers might have concerning his career, before it took it’s tragic turn.


If you would like to read about the films of the Thirties, click here.
Click here to read about physical perfection during the Golden Age of Hollywood.

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